It has been brought to my attention that I abbreviate "television" incorrectly.
For some reason, in my little pea brain I see it as t.v., not TV.
I was mocked and chastised for my erroneous thinking.
The only sane course of action to take after having been shown to be in error is to educate yourself on the subject in order to avoid further shame.
This is only, of course, after you spend three days scouring the internet, dictionaries and grammar books in an attempt to prove your rightfulness all along thereby vindicating your good name.
Not that I would ever do that.
I'm very humble and accept counsel and correction willingly.
However, if you were the type to investigate in the hopes of proving yourself right, here's what you would have found:
Any shortened form of a word is an abbreviation. Think Nov., Dr., and etc.
Acronyms are special kinds of abbreviations that can be pronounced as words. Think NASA, Scuba, NATO, and Sonar.
All acronyms are abbreviations, but not all abbreviations are acronyms.
You with me so far?
And then we have initialisms. These crazy little things are another type of abbreviation but though they look similar to acronyms they can't be pronounced as words. Think FBI, CIA, and FYI.
Don't you feel smarter already?
Now we come to the abbreviating part. Do you put periods after each letter in an acronym or initialism...like t.v.?
Grammar Girl says "there's no strict rule...some publications put periods after each letter, arguing that because each letter is essentially an abbreviation for a word, periods are necessary. Other publications don't put periods after each letter, arguing that the copy looks cleaner without them, and that because they are made up of all capital letters, the fact that they are abbreviations is implied".
In that case...television could be abbreviated t.v. or TV.
Wait one second.
Did I just prove myself correct?
Hmm.
I think I just did.
t.v.
B
You can see the rest of this session here under "Presson Baby".
4 comments:
Television is one word. Keep studying.
one of my fav's is SABLE stuff accumulated beyond life expectancy.....the pictures are
Adorable
The pictures are amazing beautiful baby! And you have never heard of a Feebie? FBI can be said you just need some extra letters, won't say you need imagination because you have that covered;)
I love how you put the picture of the smiling baby before you said "i think i just did". Very clever B! What an ah-dorable baby!
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